Introduction: The Gatherers and the Hunted xv
Chapter 1 The Food Transition 1
And They Never Went Hungry Again 1
Where the Balance Falls 6
Stage Four 15
The Global Standard Diet 19
The Mythical Banana Kingdom of Iceland 27
A Short History of Eating Too Much 33
Bending the Curve 42
What We Ate Next 47
Chapter 2 Mismatch 53
The Thin-Fat Baby 56
The Thirst Conundrum 61
The Stigmatized Majority 67
Chapter 3 Edible Economics 73
A Hidden Sea of Oil 75
Never Tasted Before 81
The Price of Bread 89
Engel's Law 96
Give Us This Day Our Daily Meat 101
Value for Money 108
Chapter 4 Out of Time 113
The Death of the Lunch Hour 117
Like a Rest in Musk 126
Wasting Time or Wasting Food 130
The Rhythm of Modern Life 134
The Woman Who Never Snacks 136
Snack Foods for the World 143
"He's Not Really Big on Food" 146
The Healthy Snack 149
Eating Alone Together 152
Chapter 5 The Changeable Eater 158
What's Salsa? 161
New but Not Really 166
Now Comes Quinoa 170
Fads and Frauds 174
Chapter 6 Dinner Without Duty 180
The Democratic Restaurant 183
Calories and Convenience 188
Dinner on a Bike 193
Self-Service 196
The Inequalities of Choice 202
Chapter 7 Eating by the Rules 208
Bleeding Beetroot 212
The Healthiest of All Possible Diets 217
The Enigma of the Protein Bar 223
Beyond Food 227
The Opposite of a Cucumber 230
Chapter 8 The Return to Cooking 238
The Dabbler Cook 241
Cooking by Numbers 247
The Land of Cooks 253
New Kitchen Rules 258
Chapter 9 Crossing the Bridge 262
The Sweet Green Grass 265
Killing the Cartoon Characters 269
"If I Had Maths Results Like This I'd Be Out of a Job" 274
Celebrate with Olives 278
The Joy of Greens 283
Recipe for a Seed 287
Epilogue: New Food on Old Plates 295
Acknowledgments 307
Bibliography 311
Notes 327
Index 347